Charlotte Brontë on literary motivation and a governess's plight, at Bonhams

A three page letter from Charlotte Brontë shining light on her motivation as a novelist is to be auctioned at Bonhams Book, Maps, Manuscripts and Historical Photographs in London on 12 June. It is estimated at £10,000-15,000.

Writing to a Miss Holmes, who had sent her an  unidentified - book to read, Charlotte said, "I own I prefer the study of the human being  to that of the human being's requirements." She also comments on the life of a governess  her own former occupation and that of the heroine of her best known novel Jane Eyre  "I must feel a degree of interest in the details of a Governess-life. That life has on me the hold of actual experience; to all who live it  I cannot but incline with a certain sympathy; and any kind feeling they express for me  comes pleasantly and meets with grateful acceptance".

The recipient of the letter, Miss Holmes, lived for a while with the family of William Makepiece Thackery and greatly irritated the author of Vanity Fair with her constant attempts to covert him to Roman Catholicism.